Where’s the Water: Toxic Runoff

Focusing on Toxic Road Runoff—How Big is the Problem and How Do We Correct It.

Members of the League of Women Voters of Thurston County (LWV-TC) have been working on the Thurston County Water Realities Study—Part II, and have been learning about the most urgent factors faced by Thurston County as it encounters increasingly longer and drier summers, shorter wetter rainy periods, and a growing population. Local streams are supporting fewer and fewer salmon. Ground water reservoirs are not being sufficiently recharged.

Given that the quality and quantity of Thurston County water is complicated by factors that include the Hirst Decision and a subsequent law passed by the Legislature in March 2018, the LWV-TC Study Group will host this last of four Public Meetings.

HISTORY: Realizing that the need for water and its consumption is constantly changing, members at the Thurston League Annual Meeting in May 2018, adopted a two-year study designed to update the LWV-TC study “Thurston County Water Realities in Relation to Planned Development, 2008.” Embarking on an update of the initial study, we keep in mind the Rowland Howard quote from 1856: “You never miss the water until the well runs dry.”